Fall is a busy time for knitting instructors. I have back-to-back engagements for the next five weeks and I spent last week in New Hampshire at Interweave’s Knitting Lab. If you get the chance to go to a Knitting Lab, I encourage you to do so — you’ll find lots of classes from loads of teachers and you can’t help to learn something in every class.
The one and only Barbara G Walker was the keynote speaker Saturday night. Although she’s currently more active in feminist causes than knitting, she remains a source of inspiration to knitters. Plus, she’s simply delightful.
I leave for Billings, Montana, tomorrow to teach socks (both top-down and toe-up) and mittens at Wild Purls. I’ve never been to Montana so I’m looking forward to the chance to wear heavy sweaters.
I’ll be teaching at the 4th annual Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, this September 14 and 15 (that’s a Friday and Saturday). The fair includes classes, a marketplace, demonstrations, book signings, fiber animals, food vendors, music, silent auction, and more, including guided tours of Brown Sheep Yarn Company.
This year, I’ll be teaching a two-day class on Sweater Design and Finishing.
In this two-day workshop, you’ll make a miniature pullover (suitable for a teddy bear or, perhaps, an infant) following the pullover instructions in The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. Your sweater will be worked in four pieces—one back, one front, and two sleeves. To minimize the amount of class-time knitting, all students will work a small sweater in worsted-weight yarn. To prepare for the class, students will knit the four pieces to the armholes according to instructions that will be provided at the time of registration.
In the class, you can choose between drop-shoulder, modified drop-shoulder, and set-in sleeve shaping, and between round and V-neck shaping. So, even though you will knit only one version, you’ll lear the others. Best of all, you’ll leave with a completed sweater and all the knowledge you need to design, knit, and finish your next sweater beautifully.
You will learn:
determining the correct garment size
measuring a gauge swatch
calculating even spacing of increases or decreases
centering a pattern stitch
working selvedge stitches
paired increases and decreases
picking up stitches around a neckline
an elastic bind-off appropriate for ribbed necklines
seaming
blocking
tips and tricks along the way
I’ve been assigned a large classroom and there’s lots of space available. For information, visit nebraskafiberfair.com. I hope to see you there!
I get enough questions about my teaching schedule that I thought I’d try monthly postings for upcoming classes and locations. Below are the classes I have scheduled for January and February, 2012.
I hope to meet some of you in class!
January 21, 2012: Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins, Boulder, CO
9:30 am to 12:30 pm: Conquering Kitchener Stitch
1:30 pm to 4:30 pm: The Mathematics of Knitting
February 10, 2012: Paradise Fibers, Spokane, WA
6 hours: Cast-On and Bind-Off Techniques
February 11, 2012: Paradise Fibers, Spokane, WA
6 hours: Toe-Up Socks
February 25, 2012: Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins, Boulder, CO
10:00 am to 5:00 pm: Cast-On and Bind-Off Techniques
Happy New Year!
Although I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I do usually reflect on the joys of the previous year, and 2011 was a good one.
The highlights for me were teaching at Sock Summit, Interweave Knitting Lab, and Knitter’s Review Retreat, in addition to teaching at various yarn shops and guilds.
I also attended my first spinning convention at SOAR (SpinOff Autumn Retreat) and I spun yarn and knitted several projects including a pair of socks, a shawl, a scarf, a pair of fingerless mitts, and even a sweater. Sock Knitting Master Class was published and Knit Handy and Crochet Handy became available as iPhone apps (they tell me droid versions will be available in early 2012).
I managed to write posts for this blog on a somewhat regular schedule and I have become active in the Budd’s Buds group on Ravelry (a forum for questions and discussions about my various books and/or patterns, and an opportunity to comment on and post pictures of any and all variations made of my themes). Please visit!
But one of the best things that happened in 2011 is that my 90-year-old father completely recovered from his bike accident of September, 2010, when he fell on a curb, breaking 8 ribs and puncturing a lung. Four weeks in the hospital didn’t keep him down and he got back on his bike in January. Two days ago, he past the 4,000-mile mark on his odometer for this year! Here’s a photo of him two days ago at the spot where he had his accident.
If you ask me, he’s still dangerously close to the fateful curb. And what about all that snow and ice on the street? Is he inspirational or just plain nuts?
Today I fly the friendly skies to Rochester, New York, where I have the good fortune to teach at Clara Parkes’ Knitter’s Review Knitting Retreat this weekend.
I’ve developed two new classes this year, both of which will debut at the retreat. It’s fair to say that I’m a little nervous. But I’ve made handouts and have knitted swatches so at least I’ll have something to show.
On Friday, I’ll teach shadow knitting. This is a magical technique where you manipulate garter ridges in two colors to create patterns that seem to appear and disappear, depending on the angle at which the fabric is viewed. Very cool!
On Saturday, I’m scheduled to teach “Conquering Kitchener Stitch”. In three hours I hope to make 30 people comfortable with Kitchener stitch, whether it’s used for stockinette stitch, reverse stockinette stitch, garter stitch, or ribbing. And as a extra bonus, we’ll master the invisible ribbed bind-off, which has its roots in Kitchener stitch. Want to place any bets on whether or not everyone in the class will leave feeling at peace with this most misunderstood grafting stitch?
I’ve put off updating the list of workshops on my website because I’m waiting on confirmation on some. But, in the meantime, here’s a list of when and where I expect to be teaching this year.
I hope you see you there!
February 12: Rumplestiltskin Yarns, Sayville, New York
March 4 and 5: The Northern Texas Knitting Guild, Arlington, Texas
April 30: My Sister Knits, Fort Collins, Colorado
May 14: My Sister Knits, Fort Collins, Colorado
July 28–31: Sock Summit 2011, Portland, Oregon
September 16: Brown Sheep Company, Mitchell, Nebraska
November 2–6: Interweave Knitting Lab, San Mateo, California
November 17–20: Knitter’s Review Fall Retreat, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Last weekend I taught a toe-up sock workshop at Rumplestiltskin Yarns in Sayville, New York. Sayville is on Long Island, so it’s one of those “you can’t get there from here” situations (read that: no direct flights) from Denver, Colorado. I had to take two planes to get there and three to get home two days later. Given the dreadful weather the whole country has experienced this winter, I’d been pretty certain that I’d miss one of the connections. I packed extra yarn just in case. But despite the odds, everything went smoothly and made all five flights, and got some good exercise running through airports in the process.
If you ever find yourself in Sayville, be sure to check out Rumplestiltskin Yarns. The owners, Angela and Vincent (Vinnie) D’Aguanno, have the yarn shop business all figured out. It’s a comfortable, homey shop that offers an incredible list of classes (they teach 300 students per month). Vinnie likes to spin in the bay window out front and sells his handspun yarn in the shop (there was only one gorgeous skein left when I got there and I’m still kicking myself for not buying it).
I was there to teach the first day of their annual weekend workshop. When I arrived, the tables were set with flowers, Vinnie’s homemade cookies, candies, and project bags for each of the 30 students. The bags contained everything needed for the classes, down to the needles and markers, as well as a copy of Knitted Gifts or Getting Started Knitting Socks. Vinnie (that’s him at the end of the table), who is also a gourmet cook, provided a delicious lunch of salads, wraps, berry-infused seltzer, and the most delicious apple tart I’ve ever tasted.
The students were friendly, eager, and engaging (I think they’re a reflection of the shop) and the class went well. Everyone learned all of the techniques necessary to knit a sock from the toe up and left prepared to knit them in a variety of sizes and gauges. I’m now preparing to teach the same workshop and host a knit-along in Arlington, Texas, next month.
I was in Wisconsin this weekend to teach at Midwest Masters, hosted by Yarns by Design in Neenah, Wisconsin. There were six teachers teaching a total of 20 classes over the course of three days. The classes were held at a hotel that was just one block from Yarns by Design, which held extended hours during the conference. Boy, did I have fun! I reconnected with a couple of people I hadn’t seen in years and I met dozens of new friends.
I taught a morning class on cast-ons, an afternoon class on bind-offs (I think we got through eight variations of each), and a full-day class on knitting a sock from the toe up. In the sock class, we knit a baby-size sock with three choices for the ribbing design—2/2 rib on the leg, 2/2 rib on the leg and instep, and a right-twist pattern on the leg.
All but two students finished the sock—just look at the variety. Several students even finished the mate and others started a full-size sock instead!
If you ever have the opportunity to take classes at a knitting retreat/conference/camp, I encourage you to do so. You’ll meet the nicest people, learn new tricks, and have a lot of fun to boot!
I spent last weekend teaching for Camp Yawatink, a knitting retreat in the picturesque foothills of the Cascade Mountains west of Anacortes, Washington, sponsored by Ana-Cross Stitch. From Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, the campers immersed themselves in knitting. I taught a full day on Saturday and again Sunday morning. The campers knitted a miniature sweater, learned to follow the instructions in The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, how to sew seams, pick up stitches for a neckline, and other tips along the way. They also assembled afghans to donate to the camp, enjoyed a gift exchange, and won door prizes. I hope that they had as much fun as I did. In fact, I had so much fun that I didn’t want to filter it through a lens and I didn’t take a single photo!
The reason I’m writing about it today is that I’m still on a bit of high from the weekend. I’ve spent most of this week catching up on a backlog of editing work and piles of laundry (which is why I haven’t blogged much), but it was oh, so worth it. I encourage you all to take advantage of any knitting retreats that are provided in your area or travel to one (the French Girl Knits knitting tours of France look pretty wonderful!). Imagine a weekend where your only responsibility is to show up for meals on time. The rest of the time is spent with like-minded knitters enjoying each other’s company and learning new tricks.
From the feedback I got, the best trick I showed the campers was the shaping formula from Cheryl Brunette’s book Sweater 101 (Patternworks, 1991) and more recently expanded in Shirley Paden’s Knitwear Design Workshop (Interweave, 2010). This formula tells you how to space increases or decreases evenly across a row (or between a certain number of rows) of knitting. Here’s an overview of how it works (check out the books mentioned above for details):
Suppose you have 124 stitches on your needles and the pattern says to increase 14 stitches evenly. To determine how to space those 14 increases evenly, divide 112 by 14. This tells you the number of full times 14 goes into 112, which in this case is 8 with a remainder of 12.
To me, the rest is magical and would take a math genius to understand (I’m sure I’ll never grasp the logic). Next, subtract the remainder from the number of stitches you want to decrease, which in this case is 14 – 12 = 2. Also add 1 to the whole number at the top of the division equation, which in this case is 8 + 1 + 9.
Finally, draw diagonal lines between the two numbers on the top line of the equation and the numbers on the bottom line of the equation. These diagonal lines tell you to increase every 8th stitch 2 times and every 9th stitch 12 times—14 increases worked over 124 stitches. Don’t believe me? Check the math: 8 x 2 = 16 9 x 12 = 108
16 stitches + 108 stitches = 124 stitches 2 increases + 12 increases = 14 stitches increased. For truly even spacings, alternate the two increase intervals. In this case, increase every 9th stitch 3 times, then increase on the 8th stitch once, then increase every 9th stitch 6 times, then increase on the 8th stitch once, then increase every 9th stitch 3 more times—14 increases worked over 124 stitches.
If you don’t want to work the last increase on the last stitch of the row (which I avoid at all costs), split one interval as evenly as possible between the beginning and end of the row. Just to make things more difficult, let’s split the 9-stitch interval:
Increase in the 4th stitch, then increase every 9th stitch 2 times, then increase in the 8th stitch once, then increase every 9th stitch 6 times, then increase in the 8th stitch once, then increase every 9th stitch 3 more times, then work 5 stitches even to the end of the row—14 increases worked over 124 stitches.
Decreases are worked the same way, but remember that a decrease is typically worked over 2 stitches (k2tog), so you would work the decreases on 7th + 8th stitches 2 times and on the 8th and 9th stitches 12 times.
